Arabella Malibrant and Henry Morton sat again in the second-floor drawing-room of her tidy little house at number 7 Theobald's Road. It was a place Morton had sometimes wondered about. Was it left to her when her husband fled under a financial cloud back to his native Italy, or had she bought it of her own earnings? It was doubtful that even the most celebrated actress would be quite so well rewarded, at least for her work onstage. That some “patron” was behind it-or several-was an unavoidable possibility.
Such thoughts always caused a little burn of dyspeptic resentment in the heart of Henry Morton. This was usually followed by a sinking feeling. With application, and a little luck, he might yet earn enough to safely call himself a gentleman. But he had to admit that no number of lucrative commissions would ever enable a mere Bow Street Runner to provide a woman a house like this.
But it was a pleasant place, and he enjoyed being there. Arabella had decorated with a somewhat more flamboyant hand than Morton himself would have wielded-like many women with hair of the same colour, she was rather too fond of red. The Turkey carpet was good, the shiny pink cushions… well, perhaps. But the heavy crimson window-drapes were too much. Not that she ever asked his advice.
Indeed, it was more Mrs. Malibrant's way to offer advice than receive it.
“I hear doubts, Henry Morton,” Arabella said, patting her lips with a fine linen napkin.
They were drinking smuggled French wine and eating fresh oysters on the half-shell.
“It is part and parcel of what I do-doubt everything and everyone.”
“Except me, of course.”
Morton smiled as he speared an oyster with his fork. He was sure he felt it wriggle as he swallowed, and reached quickly for his wineglass. “If Rokeby wanted to do away with Glendinning he would merely have issued a challenge himself, on some pretext or other. What you suggest seems too elaborate and too subtle for our Colonel. And then to lure Glendinning off somewhere and poison him…? Aside from the fact that it isn't his style, he must surely have realised we would suspect him.”
“But, Henry, had I not been at Portman House and been alerted by the jarvey, the doctor who saw him would have had the final word: died of excessive drink and choking on his own bile. It seems a crime with little risk, to me. Rokeby could hardly have predicted that a woman of my observational abilities would be on the stair.”
Morton smiled. Arabella could not be flattered enough. “You are a marvel,” he murmured dutifully, pursuing another slippery morsel about its shell.
Arabella's rich throaty laugh filled the room. Perhaps it was the wine, or perhaps it was something else, but Morton could not help noticing that he was in rather better favour this night than he had been on the previous two.
“You might at least try to sound sincere, you dog!” she scolded. “And grateful. I sent Miss Hamilton your way. Where are my thanks for that?”
“I have just made a small remittance,” Morton replied, “with more to follow.”
“Oh, I see. Your favours have worth, but what of mine?”
“They are beyond price.”
Arabella smiled, fixing a bemused gaze on him. “It is lucky that you are a handsome rogue, Henry Morton, for otherwise I should never have taken up with anyone so common as a Bow Street Runner.”
Morton laughed. Their eyes met over the raised rims of their wineglasses, and Arabella's were dancing with amusement and affection. Yes, it did seem tonight was going to end more pleasantly.
Arabella's face turned suddenly serious. “She is an odd woman,” she said.
“Miss Hamilton?”
Arabella nodded distractedly. “Arthur said he thought her a person whom tragedy would visit again and again.”
“Yes,” Morton said, surprised by the rightness of this. “I had that sense. As though she is aware of it herself and only struggles on. She is so joyless. I thought it merely the recent events, but perhaps it is more.”
Arabella looked up at him. “Now, Henry, don't you go to rescuing her. You know where that leads….”
Morton grimaced and sipped his wine.
“Find out what you can of Glendinning's death, and then leave well enough alone.”
Morton nodded, only half listening. “Do you think she was wrong about him?-Glendinning? Was he dissolute? You know how well these London men hide such things from polite society. And from their families.”
She held out her glass and Morton poured more wine. “Yes, I suppose it's quite possible. One of the several things you shall have to find out. Who was Halbert Glendinning… and why did Louisa call him Richard?”
“Do you remember that verse I found in his pocket?”
Arabella shook her head. “It was not memorable.”
Morton went to his coat and dug out the scrap of paper. Returning to his chair, he read:
“ ‘It will find you soon enough,
The empty night after the day.
Brief and filled with sorrow,
Love will rise and slip away.’”
“‘It’?” Arabella said.
“Death, one might infer: ‘The empty night after the day.’ Does it not sound like a love affair gone bad?”
Arabella took the paper from his hand and pondered it a moment. “It is most certainly about the loss of love. ‘The empty night’ alludes to that as well.” She looked up at Morton. “I wonder if Arthur was wrong. He thought them about to announce their engagement. But what if the opposite was true?” She glanced at the verse again. “Did Louisa know how Glendinning felt?”
Morton shook his head. “I wonder. It is terribly despairing, isn't it? And think of what then occurred: He challenged the most feared duelist in London. It does look a bit suspicious, especially when you consider that Glendinning apparently had no skill with a pistol.”
Arabella put her glass down and gazed gravely at Morton. “Self-murder. That's what you're suggesting?”
Morton shrugged. “I don't know. But what if his love affair with Miss Hamilton had come to an end, or he felt it was about to?”
“But why was he in the Otter?”
“When dying to defend her honour failed-and remember he is of a romantic disposition-perhaps he'd learned he could procure poison at the Otter. Or meet someone there who could procure it for him.”
“Miss Hamilton is not paying you to learn this.”
Morton nodded. He left his chair and went to the open window where the slight breeze touched him. The street was very quiet. He felt a tension in the city, now, with Bonaparte returned to the continent. All of England seemed to be holding its breath. He thought of Wellington, and had a sudden image of the Duke bent over a map by lamplight. What a terrible weight of responsibility on one man's shoulders.
Arabella came and stood beside him.
“I have need of some assistance in this matter, I now see,” Morton said.
“Hmm.”
“There are a few people in proper society who might be more forthcoming if they were approached by someone with more subtlety than I could ever manage. Someone they greatly esteem and have no doubt long wished to meet.”
“Such a person would be difficult to find. And what would such a helper's share of the four hundred pounds be, I wonder?”
“Madam!” Morton said. “The sort of person with access to the circles I speak of cares nothing for gain.”
A voice cried out in the darkened distance and they both leaned out, listening intently, but it was only a domestic dispute, not someone shouting news from France. A familiar male uneasiness stirred in Morton, as it had so many times before. Should he not be there, with the others? Facing what had to be faced? Yet here he lingered. Fine wine, fine food, a beautiful mistress. Comfort. Safety.
Perhaps Arabella sensed his mood, for she laid an arm gently over his shoulders, which few women were tall enough to do. For a few quiet moments they stood gazing out together. Then they turned and faced each other, slipping into the more familiar male-female embrace, Arabella's arms sliding luxuriously around his neck as his own encircled her shapely waist.
He started to speak. “I should be-”
But she silenced him with a kiss. Her breath was warm, faintly redolent of wine. “No,” she murmured, brushing her lips across his cheek and down over his bare throat. “You have your duties here. It comes for us all, as the poet said, and soon enough. We needn't go seeking it.” She pressed her face close to him a moment. “Soon enough,” she whispered.